Our Bruised Bodies | Bradley Bradshaw

ACT FOUR - PART TWELVE

Hello and welcome back. Cheers to a new chapter!

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"Respectfully..." Jon began to speak, which caused Grace to look up from the essays she was marking, only to find the Lieutenant Commander, who was sitting opposite her, watching her closely, with an expression she couldn't quiet place.

"You look like hell." Well, she should have expected that. Grace was aware of the fact that slowly people were starting to notice that something wasn't quiet right.

Even though claiming that she looked like hell was a vast exaggeration. She very much did not look like hell. Grace looked like she always looked. The perfect mask she had crafted over the years that was Icarus and Commander Kazansky firmly in place.

"I don't see how that's respectful." She told Jonathan before directing her attention back at an essay to mark. There were so many things she had at her hands already. A concerned co-worker, she could do without, but Jonathan was more than just a co-worker. He was a friend, which made sidestepping his concern nearly impossible.

"I was just trying to voice my concern for your wellbeing, since you lack your normal sensibility, you have about no patience, and you are easily annoyed. And you do tend to ignore the people around you when they talk to you. You are very far away right now." Elrond told her, before glancing at Grace again and adding. "Ma'am. Respectfully."

"Saying offensive shit and then adding respectfully, does not make it respectful, you do realise that, right?" Grace wanted to know from her friend, for she would never talk like that with a subordinate.

"Agree to disagree." Jon shrugged, before he moved around Grace's office desk to sit down on its edge, looking down at the Commander from his current seat.

"Come on, Grace. What's going on?" He then asked gentler, the playfulness and teasing tone from before gone, replaced with concern.

It is true that something was off, but Grace had hoped Bradley and she would manage to reign it back in before the situation would start to affect them so much other people would start to notice it too. Only was Grace singlehandedly approaching this course of action, for Bradley had decided to ignore her. The silence was stretching for the eighth day by now, which added another complication to it all.

Maverick would come home today, had come home this morning actually, only to find them not even addressing each other any longer once they would meet up when Grace returns from work and Bradley from rehab for the day.

What a fine pair they made.

Grace didn't sleep well, but there was nothing a very good concealer couldn't mask. She was fairly often stuck in her own mind, but yet again, she was Icarus and never known for talking much, so people didn't notice at first that she was slacking off. Grace was still mindful enough to have the right answer when asked something, she still had all her lessons memorised and she was still flying better than all her students.

But it was her flying style, that had tipped Elrond off that something wasn't quite right, and she knew it. Grace was always preferring the book-style, flying overly technical and rarely listening to her gut feeling, even though in the worst of all situations, it had saved her life multiple times, but this was just training and her students were here to learn something. It was not that she suddenly started to make mistakes, she didn't, but somehow her flying had lost its spark. It was still exciting to watch her operate a fighter jet, but Jonathan felt like there was blood in the water.

A god is a god, a mighty and eternal being but the moment you make a god bleed, people start to stop believing in them. They will start to question their holiness, they will look at them an see another mere mortal and Elrond wasn't sure if the Navy could take that fall right now. Not when they all think they've found their messiah in Sarah Grace Kazansky.